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Dear friends, dear interested,
The situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. With the capture of the capital Kabul, the Taliban have brought large parts of the country under their control. Especially those people who are committed to the rule of law, democracy and human rights and/or have worked as so-called “locally employed civilians” for Western states or non-governmental organisations are in the Taliban’s crosshairs and must fear for their lives. Many of them have worked directly for the NATO forces and development organisations in Afghanistan and trusted the employing states to protect them. The governments are not sufficiently fulfilling this responsibility. The rescue missions that have now been launched by some states come too late for many people. Dramatic scenes are unfolding at Kabul airport.
Regardless of one’s position on the military mission in Afghanistan: Locally employed civilians and their families must now be given the opportunity to get out of the country to safety without delay. With every minute of hesitation, the window is closing to save as many people as possible. Moreover, not all locally employed civilians are covered by the narrowly defined visa regulations, which is politically intended. For local staff of EU institutions, there is as yet no common procedure at all. This does not only apply to direct local staff, but also to human rights defenders, journalists and women’s rights activists who are under particular threat. There are concrete proposals to bring them and the local staff to safety much faster and less bureaucratically. Sara Nanni and I will talk about how this can be done with four high-profile guests in the next edition of Europe Calling.
Our guests are:
- Marcus Grotian, First Chairman of the “Patenschaftsnetzwerk Afghanische Ortskräfte”.
- Winfried Nachtwei, Afghanistan expert & former Green member of the Bundestag
- Sara de Jong, co-founder of the British network “Sulha Alliance”
- Andrea Thies, former Head of Human Resources of the EU Police Mission EUPOL in Afghanistan.
Date: Thursday, 19.8.2021, 19-21 hrs CEST
Register here: https://gruenlink.de/28xd
The webinar will be simultaneously translated into German and English.
We look forward to this important discussion with you. Please invite other interested people to join us!
With solidarity greetings from Düsseldorf,
Sara Nanni (Green candidate for the Bundestag, security and defence expert)
Sven Giegold (MEP, spokesperson for the German Greens in the European Parliament)